Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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158. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of participants in a former scheme (details supplied); and the moneys expended on the scheme. [8931/19]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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In December 2008, my Department announced details of a capital investment scheme for the marketing and processing of agricultural products, with the aim of improving competitiveness, value-added and the quality of agricultural products through grant aiding processing facilities, storage, handling and marketing facilities in 'near farm' enterprises.

€16.7m was allocated by my Department to the scheme. 66 applications were approved, comprising 31 meat projects, 22 mart projects and 13 horticulture projects.

39 projects across the three sectors were successfully completed and €6.5m was paid in grant aid. In the small meat sector, 18 completed projects were paid a total of €3.5m, with 14 completed mart projects grant aided to a total of €1.6m. The remainder related to the horticulture sector.

The economic downturn in Ireland, at that time, played a role in the reduction in the uptake of the capital investment scheme, with 27 applicants unable to proceed with the investments. With their agreement, their approvals were ultimately revoked.

Grant aid in the livestock marts sector was aimed at supporting a positive impact on the environment by providing marts with adequate slurry storage and treatment facilities while the projects in the small meat sector included grant aid to small slaughterhouses and low throughput enterprises to aid improvement in efficiency and to enable the production of new and innovative quality products to assist food business operators to develop new markets.